Tony Award-winning ‘Once’ is a touchingly simple musical

"Once," based on a much-loved 2007 Irish movie and the winner of the 2012 Tony Award for best musical, is the most no-frills Broadway musical imaginable.

Dan Kane CantonRep.com entertainment editor @DKaneREP

The first thing you notice is the music-making, the spontaneity and the spirit.

About 20 minutes before the musical "Once" begins, the cast members — actors who double as musicians — take the stage of the Palace Theatre and begin a lively jam session complete with dancing. This being a pub in Dublin, the music is traditional Irish, with a Mumford & Sons flavor.

Audience members are invited to venture onstage to buy a drink and mingle. Then as showtime approaches, the crowded stage is cleared of visitors and a young man begins an imploring, nakedly emotional song titled "Leave." The lights dim and a young woman slowly ventures down the aisle toward him.

"Once," based on a much-loved 2007 Irish movie and the winner of the 2012 Tony Award for best musical, is the most no-frills Broadway musical imaginable. It takes place on a single set. The cast members, dressed in nondescript street clothes, play all the instruments (cello, violin, mandolin, accordion, banjo) and even move the scenery. The simplicity brings total focus on the touching relationship at the show's center and the warm, moving songs that punctuate it.

Guy (Stuart Ward) is a fledgling yet skilled Irish singer-songwriter-guitarist dealing with recent heartbreak and a growing sense that he will never find success as a musician. Girl (Dani de Waal) is a Czech immigrant living in a Dublin apartment with her mother and her young daughter. A pianist, she sees great promise in his music.

Drawn together by a shared love of music, the vulnerable pair find other feelings developing. "Falling Slowly," the Oscar-winning song played early on, encapsulates their attraction with affecting melody and close vocal harmonies. Other songs, including "If You Want Me," "Gold" and "When Your Mind's Made Up" are stirring enough within the context of the story — and with lyrical onstage accompaniment — to induce chills.

There is abundant humor and rousing musical interludes in the show along with deep feelings. Ward and de Waal, both from the U.K., embody their characters to the point that they never seem to be acting. The company surrounding them is versatile, colorful and ripe with talent. By show's end, I felt affection for each member. The standing ovation at show's end on opening night felt inevitable and instant. (I'll confess I was seated in the eighth row, lending plenty of intimacy in the vast theater.)

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